8865 
W9i 


Wright 

Practical  Efforts  at  character 
Building  for  Jail  Prisoners 


CH44 


March,  1922 


PRACTICAL  EFFORTS  AT 

CHARACTER  BUILDING 

FOR  JAIL  PRISONERS 


PRESENTED  AT 

THE  FIFTY-FIRST  CONGRESS 

of  the 

AMERICAN  PRISON  ASSOCIATION 

JACKSONVILLE,  FLORIDA,  1921 


By 
J.  F.  WRIGHT 

FXECUTIVE  SECRETARY,  PATHFINDERS  OF  AMERICA, 
DETROIT,  MICHIGAN 


CALIF 


RUSSELL  SAGE  FOUNDATION 
NEW  YORK  CITY 


Price  10  Cents 


79935 


■a 


PRACTICAL   EFFORTS  AT  CHARACTER 
BUILDING  FOR  JAIL  PRISONERS 

By  J.  F.  Wright 

Executive  Secretary,  Pathfinders  of  America,  Detroit,  Michigan 

To  sympathize  with  the  criminal,  but  not  condone  the  crime, 
is  neither  "mushy  sentimentalism"  nor  a  "pink  tea  program"; 
it  is  humanism,  and  the  man  who  cannot  maintain  this  attitude 
of  mind  is  not  only  missing  the  joy  of  living  but  is  piling  up 
trouble   for  himself  and   posterity.      Neither  can   he  rightfully 
claim  to  be  a  follower  of  the  lowly  Nazarene. 
*t        When  any  nation  spends  eight  times  as  much  money  annually, 
in  a  farcical  contest  with  vice  and  crime,  as  it  costs  to  run  that 
\v  government — as  is  the  case  in  the  United  States  today — the 
criminal  problem  becomes  a  national  question  of  vital  impor- 
tance; and  as  long  as  our  prison  system  is  fed  by  over  one  mil- 
lion arrests  each  year,  no  boy  or  girl  is  immune  from  its  sting, 
v  and  it  becomes  a  local  question  very  close  to  your  fireside  and 
*   mine. 

There  are  two  aspects  to  this  problem  that  has  divided  society 
— the  economical  and  the  humane — and  while  an  intelligent  dis- 
cussion of  either  inevitably  leads  to  the  same  conclusion,  I  shall 
endeavor  to  convince  you,  in  the  few  moments  at  my  disposal, 
that  in  dividing  the  subject  we  are  not  only  trying  to  purify  a 
polluted  stream  at  its  mouth  instead  of  at  its  source,  but  are 
dividing  our  forces  that  should  be  concentrated  on  constructive 
rather  than  corrective  measures. 

The  economical  phase  of  the  problem  represents  the  material 
interest,  while  the  humane  phase  represents  the  spiritual  side  of 
the  question,  or  that  primordial  energy  in  man  so  divinely  organ- 
ized as  to  permit  of  no  distinction  between  nationality,  color, 
tongue,  or  creed,  and  which  is  the  basis  of  all  mental,  moral, 
and  intellectual  development  of  the  human  race. 

The  economical  phase  of  the  problem  is  represented  by  the 

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effort  of  our  courts  to  make  the  penalty  fit  the  crime,  and  our 
prison  system  to  measure  out  punishment  to  fit  both  the  crime 
and  the  criminal,  without  any  reference  to,  or  consideration  of, 
the  humane  side  of  the  problem. 

When  I  learn  of  sentences  passed  by  judges  who  were  formerly 
prosecuting  attorneys,  I  heartily  agree  with  John  Alan  Hamilton 
when  he  says:  "Some  judges  assume  the  position  of  public 
avenger  rather  than  protectors  of  society,"  and  I  wonder  if  their 
previous  experience  has  not  disqualified  them  to  administer  jus- 
tice with  mercy. 

When  one  judge  sentenced  two  boys  aged  eighteen  and  twenty 
years  to  solitary  confinement  at  hard  labor  for  life,  and  I  wrote 
asking  the  judge  if  I  might  correspond  with  the  boys,  he  replied 
that  he  did  not  know  the  prison  rules,  but  advised  me  to  write 
to  the  warden. 

This  experience  convinced  me  that  before  any  man  should  be 
allowed  to  sit  on  the  bench  as  a  judge,  he  should  be  required  to 
spend  one  week  in  the  county  jail,  then  the  same  time  in  each 
prison  to  which  he  would  have  the  authority  to  send  men — not 
as  a  guest  of  the  prison  official  in  the  front  office,  but  in  the  jail 
or  prison  as  an  inmate,  donning  the  prison  garb,  occupying  a 
prisoner's  cell,  with  his  meals,  bath,  exercise,  and  every  privilege 
furnished  him  at  the  sound  of  a  bell,  so  he  will  not  be  permitted 
to  exercise  reason,  initiative,  or  any  personal  responsibility;  eat 
his  meals  from  a  tin  plate,  have  a  man  stand  over  him  with  a 
gun  while  he  takes  his  exercise,  and  have  all  visible  means  of 
support  taken  from  his  family  while  he  is  in  prison.  I  wonder 
if  society  would  not  hasten  the  solution  of  the  prison  problem  if 
such  a  course  were  demanded. 

The  first  mistake  we  make  with  the  man  under  arrest  is  to 
assume  that  because  he  is  charged  with  some  anti-social  act  he 
has  forfeited  all  love  for  his  family,  respect  for  himself  and  the 
rights  of  others.  We  then  compound  the  error  and  prostitute  all 
hereditary  or  educational  refinement  in  the  man  by  forcing  him 
to  mingle  and  associate  with  the  mental,  moral,  and  physical 
scum  of  the  earth,  in  a  place  sometimes  not  fit  for  animals  and 
worse  than  most  penitentiaries  that  prepare  for  the  so-called 
hardened  offender. 

We  then  double  compound  the  crime  against  society  by  rob- 
bing the  innocent  wife  and  children  of  the  fruits  of  the  labor  of 

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the  husband  and  father,  and  then  we  expect  to  reform  this  man 
without  his  confidence  and  co-operation. 

When  legislation  or  brutal  treatment  will  eradicate  evil  from 
the  lives  of  men,  the  same  process  should  strengthen  and  increase 
their  virtues,  as  vice  is  but  the  antithesis  of  virtue  and  both  are 
creations  of  the  human  mind  manifesting  through  the  body  in 
action;  and  we  might  as  well  attempt  to  legislate  affection  be- 
tween husband  and  wife  to  prevent  divorce,  or  declare  war  on  all 
pianos  expecting  to  eliminate  ragtime  music,  as  to  undertake  to 
regulate  men's  vices  and  virtues  by  legislation  or  punishment. 

We  may  force  a  man  into  subjection,  just  as  one  nation  may 
subdue  another,  but  it  will  be  a  victory  of  force  and  arms  and 
not  of  spirit,  and  the  purpose  of  our  effort  is  defeated ;  for  that 
great  universal  law  which  provides  that  "each  thing  shall  pro- 
duce its  kind"  has  never  yet  been  defeated  or  set  aside,  so  that 
when  hate  will  produce  love,  or  war  will  produce  peace,  we  can 
plant  thistles  and  harvest  strawberries. 

In  the  same  ratio  that  we  concentrate  on  the  human  side  of 
this  problem  will  we  solve  the  economical  question  involved; 
and  as  there  are  approximately  100  jails  to  each  penitentiary  and 
29  arrests  for  misdemeanor  for  each  arrest  for  felony,  the  greatest 
opportunity  for  the  social  worker  is,  just  as  Dr.  Hastings  H.  Hart 
says,  in  the  jail. 

It  is  in  the  jail  that  we  have  the  opportunity  to  meet  the  mis- 
demeanant or  felon  when  he  first  comes  in  contact  with  the 
authorities,  and  if  the  proper  contact  is  made  with  him  then,  he 
can  more  easily  be  turned  from  a  life  of  crime  than  if  left  to  him- 
self or  the  influences  of  his  associates  in  jail. 

In  jail  we  will  find  the  young  boy  whose  parents  live  in  another 
city  or  state,  and  he  is  so  humiliated  that  he  will  not  let  them 
know  of  his  predicament,  so  he  is  left  to  the  tender  mercies  of 
the  more  hardened  associates  with  whom  he  must  mingle;  while 
if  a  man  were  to  go  to  the  boy  as  a  father  or  a  brother  and  get 
him  to  open  up  his  heart,  many  times  he  could  be  saved,  not 
only  from  prison  but  from  a  life  of  crime. 

It  is  in  jail  we  find  the  young  man  who  married  in  haste,  with 
no  conception  of  the  responsibilities  he  assumed  in  his  wedding 
vow,  and  as  soon  as  the  couple  realize  they  must  face  parent- 
hood, and  their  moonlight  dances  and  pleasures  must  give  way 
to  the  more  serious  problem  of  fatherhood  and  motherhood,  they 

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rebel  and  in  self  protection  the  young  wife  h.t>  the  recreant  hus- 
band  arrested. 
A  few  days  in  a  cell,  with  the  proper  influences  to  guide  him, 

will  in  a  very  large  majority  <>f  eases  not  only  Bettle  in  his  mind 
that  he  cannot  well  shirk  his  duties,  hut  in  many  cases  he  goes 
out  with  a  better  understanding  of  the  responsibilities  and  plea- 
sures of  parenthood. 

It  is  even  in  jail  that  the  boy  charged  with  the  more  serious 
crimes  should  be  approached  by  some  social  worker  who  can  show 
him  that  the  successful  man  is  not  the  one  who  never  made  a 
mistake,  but  the  man  who  profits  by  his  mistakes  so  that  he  does 
not  make  the  same  mistake  twice;  and  that  he  can  go  to  prison 
and  be  a  man  there,  so  that  when  he  comes  out  he  can  take  his 
place  in  society  and  be  respected. 

In  many  cases  after  the  boy  was  returned  to  the  jail  with  a 
heavy  sentence  we  have  persuaded  him  to  go  to  prison  and  live 
there  like  a  man,  but  not  allow  the  prison  to  live  in  him. 

It  is  jail  work  that  will  convince  the  social  worker  of  the  great 
need  of  a  "public  defender,"  as  he  will  be  called  upon  many 
times  to  stand  between  the  prisoner  and  some  shyster  lawyer  or 
some  ambitious  young  attorney  who  is  sure  the  case  is  so  simple 
and  easy  that  he  can  obtain  a  verdict  of  acquittal,  even  though 
the  boy  is  guilty. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  attorney  appointed  by  the  court  to 
defend  the  boy  five  minutes  before  the  trial  will  urge  the  boy 
to  plead  guilty,  though  he  may  be  innocent,  promising  to  fix  it 
with  the  judge  to  parole  him;  but  in  a  large  majority  of  cases 
this  plan  fails  and  the  boy  has  branded  himself  a  felon. 

I  recall  a  number  of  cases  where,  at  the  close  of  our  classes  in 
the  jail,  boys  have  asked  for  a  private  interview,  and  we  advised 
them  to  go  to  the  judge  and  "lay  their  cards  face  up  on  the 
table,"  which  in  many  cases  proved  decidedly  best  for  the  boy, 
as  the  judge  very  often  paroled  the  boy;  and  when  the  case  was 
too  serious  to  permit  of  parole,  the  boy  felt  better  for  having 
come  clean  and  told  the  truth. 

It  is  when  the  prisoner  hears  the  big  iron  doors  close  and  lock 
behind  him  for  the  first  time  that  his  heart  cries  out  for  a  friend, 
and  it  is  then  that  the  social  worker  whose  heart  is  in  the  right 
place  and  battling  for  humanity  can  make  a  contact  with  the 
prisoner  that  will  accomplish  more  good  than  after  the  prisoner 

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has  fought  out  those  first  conflicting  emotions  in  his  own  mind 
and  more  than  likely  reached  the  wrong  conclusions. 

After  the  prisoner  has  become  reconciled  to  his  surroundings 
in  the  jail  and  his  nerves  have  been  racked  by  a  public  parade 
of  his  misdoings,  during  which  time  the  prosecuting  attorney  has 
publicly  declared  to  the  world  through  the  newspapers  and  to 
the  judge  and  jury  that  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  should  be  taken 
out  and  shot  at  sunrise  to  protect  society,  and  the  prisoner  has 
been  sentenced  to  prison,  where  he  is  to  be  isolated  from  the 
world  and  his  loved  ones  for  a  term  of  years,  it  is  too  late  for 
the  social  worker  to  do  the  most  good,  as  the  prisoner  has  been 
given  to  understand  the  world  is  against  him  and  he  must  fight 
his  battles  alone.  He  has  thus  built  a  wall  of  mental  reservations 
around  himself  that  any  social  worker  will  find  harder  to  pene- 
trate than  had  the  social  worker  made  his  contact  with  the 
prisoner  in  the  jail  before  the  prisoner  was  tried  or  convicted. 

Some  day  society  will  realize  that  every  economical  and  social 
problem  is  but  the  product  of  human  error,  and  when  the  human 
phase  of  the  question  has  been  solved,  the  economical  and  social 
problem  will  dissolve. 

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